Men were more likely to be overweight than women. The obesity rate stood at 17.4% among men and 15.3% among women. Pre-obesity affected 41.9% of men compared with 29.3% of women. Women, however, were more likely to be underweight (2.9%) than men (1.0%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obesity rates varied significantly across member states. Malta recorded the highest share, with more than a quarter of its adult population (26.6%) obese. Latvia followed at 24.6% and Finland at 23.2%. The lowest rates were observed in Italy (7.0%), Greece (12.8%) and Romania (12.9%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The obesity rate is one of the indicators used to monitor progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being). While SDG 2 focuses on ending hunger and malnutrition, obesity remains a more widespread nutrition-related health challenge in Europe. SDG 3 aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in metres. Adults with a BMI of 30 or above are considered obese; those with a BMI of 25 to less than 30 are pre-obese; and those below 18.5 are underweight. The overweight category combines the pre-obese and obese groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2025, 16.3% of adults aged 18 and over in the European Union were classified as obese, according to the latest figures released by Eurostat on 4 September 2026. This means they had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher. An additional 35.4% of the population were pre-obese (BMI between 25 and 30), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maps","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}